Where The Dandelions Grow

01 - Pills Scattered

Echo's POV

Have you ever thought to yourself how it would feel to die?

What's on the other end? Is it darkness, or is it that pretty place many people believe in called Heaven? Are you reborn or left wandering the Earth as a ghost?

Whatever the answers are, each one sounds far more enjoyable than living in this body of mine. I can't stop the tears running down my face in streams so seamlessly that the skin around it feels like a desert. My head and the thoughts running through them at a speed I can't seem to handle anymore. You're not good enough. You'll never be good enough because if you were good enough, you'd be able to handle the problems that millions of others face daily.

Yet I can't. I can't fathom feeling like this anymore. I can't fathom feeling like a worthless piece of shit—a disappointment. I can not handle the weight of the world on my shoulders anymore. They are too fragile and brittle, just like I've been told I am my whole life. Some people may face what I face, but I am not as strong as those people.

I am not strong enough. I am not strong enough. I am not strong enough.

I want it to end, I want this pain to go away, and I don't understand how anyone can tell me that life will get better because when will it? When will I get my happy ending? So far, right now, I see no end to my book.

The book that cuts off halfway by the pile of pills is sitting in the palm of my severely shaking hand.

I heave out a cry as I rock back and forth in my dry tub, one arm wrapped around my knees, the other holding the thing that'll end my story halfway.

"You're so pathetic, Echo," I whisper to myself. The hard lump in my throat goes down with an aggressive swallow that pains me. "You're n-nobody. You're a curse to everyone you've ever been around." My voice quivers.

No good has come to anyone who's decided to befriend me. Everyone I've ever known has gotten screwed over because I'm a shitty person, left me, or died.

My mom died giving birth to me. My ex-boyfriends have all called me a freak and left or cheated. My only friend, Hailey, killed herself just a month ago. And my dad, the only person who might've tried their best to keep me from this stage, passed away just two days ago.

I have no one. Not a single soul cares about Echo Johnson.

"Just swallow them," I hiss to myself. "Swallow them, Echo!" Tears burn my eyes, and my throat is so dry I can barely understand my words escaping.

The thing is, I've been at this stage one too many times.

I've been one step away from doing what I think about twenty-four-seven, yet I do this every time I have the chance.

I close my eyes and shake my head. "No, no, no, no, no." My forehead rams against my knees. "Not again, please not again." I stop and close my fingers over the pills so tightly it hurts.

Then I throw them against the wall of my shower, and the sound of them hitting the tiles and dropping into the bath fills the bathroom.

I scream.

I scream so loud a ringing sounds in my head till I go mute. Till no sound can leave my mouth for the next minute. I'm such a failure. Ending my life, I can't even do that correctly.

For the next five minutes, I sat staring at my toes, surrounded by the pills that were once in my palm. Tears continue to fall. Usually, I hate crying, but after the first five hours, I ignored them and let them run.

I close my eyes to feel the familiar burn and lay down flat. What is my life.

That's no question but a statement because I expect no answer. My life is pointless.